Chapter 5 - THE MEN WHO FOLLOWED GRANT INTO THE SKY
-5
By Sunday morning, the airline had suspended three employees pending investigation.
Grant.
Reid Mercer.
Martin Vale.
The airline emphasized that there was no evidence of any threat to commercial aircraft operations.
I understood why.
Hundreds of pilots, mechanics and employees had nothing to do with Grant’s private life.
Passengers deserved facts rather than panic.
Still, seeing Grant’s employee photograph on an internal investigation notice made my stomach twist.
For years I had believed his career was the most honest part of him.
Flying seemed unforgiving of lies.
Checklists.
Weather.
Fuel.
Mechanical tolerances.
Procedures.
You could not charm gravity.
Apparently Grant had learned to compartmentalize.
Truth inside the cockpit.
Fiction everywhere else.
Katherine overnighted copies of Natalie’s surviving documents to investigators.
By afternoon, Detective Ruiz invited Savannah and me to a conference room inside a federal office near the airport.
Cody stayed with my sister.
I hated leaving him, but there were things he should never have to hear.
On the table were enlarged copies of Natalie’s notes.
Three damaged aircraft.
Insurance payouts.
Reid’s flight school.
A mechanic named Martin Vale.
One insurance broker, Lawrence Pike.
Pike had died six years earlier.
Heart attack.
Martin was alive.
Reid was currently represented by an attorney and refusing informal questioning.
Grant had also retained counsel.
That surprised nobody.
The October aircraft had been located.
It belonged to a Tennessee shell company named Blue Cedar Aviation LLC.
“Who owns Blue Cedar?”
I asked.
An investigator named Aaron Bell answered.
“Officially, another LLC.”
“Eventually?”
“Funds trace toward a trust associated with Reid Mercer.”
Savannah whispered, “Of course.”
The aircraft itself remained inside a private hangar near Nashville.
Authorities had secured it.
No one had flown it recently.
Technical examination had begun.
Bell was careful with his words.
“We are not concluding anyone intended to cause an accident.”
“But?”
He looked at me.
“Several maintenance entries appear irregular.”
My hands turned cold.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning specialists are reviewing them.”
I appreciated that they would not turn suspicion into certainty simply because I was frightened.
Then Bell showed us Grant’s travel patterns.
Dallas.
Denver.
Atlanta.
Nashville.
For four years, he had used schedule trades aggressively.
Sometimes legitimate.
Sometimes unusual.
One name repeatedly approved or facilitated swaps.
Reid.
“Was Reid his boss?”
“No,” Bell said. “Senior captain and union committee member. Influential, but not Grant’s direct supervisor.”
“Could he change schedules?”
“Not officially by himself.”
“But?”
“He knew people who could.”
That explained Grant’s ability to maintain two households.
He did not need a magical calendar.
He needed colleagues who accepted trades.
A crash pad.
A second phone.
And a wife in each city who believed his absences belonged to aviation.
Savannah looked at me.
“How often did he tell you he was in Dallas?”
I thought.
“Maybe six trips a month.”
Her face collapsed.
“He was with me on half of them.”
“What about when he told you he was flying?”
“Sometimes he probably was with you.”
The realization was grotesque.
Each of us had unknowingly served as the other woman in Grant’s schedule.
Bell placed another document on the table.
“We found evidence of a third residence.”
My body became still.
Savannah said:
“No.”
“Not necessarily another relationship.”
“Where?”
“Denver.”
Grant had used a small furnished apartment rented through Blue Cedar.
Investigators obtained access with proper legal authority.
Inside they found no women’s clothes.
No family photographs.
Instead:
Boxes.
Financial files.
Old aviation documents.
And a wall calendar.
Bell showed us photographs.
October 18 was circled.
Next to it:
R + C / BCA / 09:20.
Rachel and Cody.
Blue Cedar Aviation.
9:20.
Two days later:
S + L move Nashville?
Savannah and Lila.
My throat closed.
After our planned anniversary flight, Savannah and her daughter were apparently supposed to move into my city.
Into what?
My house?
Grant’s new life?
Savannah pushed her chair backward.
“He told me we might transfer to Nashville eventually.”
“When?”
“After Lila was born.”
“Did he say where you would live?”
“He said he was looking at property.”
I thought of my own home.
Grant and I owned it jointly.
If Cody and I died, Grant would receive my share.
My belongings.
Cody’s room.
The backyard where Grant taught him to throw a baseball.
Would Savannah have been moved into the life we left behind?
She looked physically ill.
“I would never have gone if I knew.”
“I know.”
Then Bell showed another box recovered in Denver.
It contained insurance policies.
Natalie.
Me.
Cody.
Grant.
Savannah.
And Lila.
Everyone was insured.
But amounts differed.
Natalie: $900,000.
Rachel: $3.2 million.
Cody: $750,000.
Savannah: $2.5 million.
Lila: a much smaller child policy.
I stared at Savannah’s name.
“You too.”
She looked terrified.
Bell nodded.
“Grant was beneficiary?”
“Primarily.”
Savannah whispered:
“He told me it was financial planning after the baby.”
“When was it purchased?”
“Seven months ago.”
Before Lila was born.
Before the cockpit announcement.
Before Grant supposedly planned to merge his future around Savannah.
She had not been the replacement wife.
She had become another insured asset.
That changed the room.
Until then, it had been easy to divide Grant’s life into wife and mistress, old family and new family.
Now Savannah looked at her own insurance documents and understood she might simply be the next stage of the pattern.
“Was there a travel plan for me?”
She asked.
Bell hesitated.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A private flight scheduled in February.”
Her baby would be five months old.
“Passengers?”
“Grant, Savannah and Lila.”
She began crying.
“Where?”
“Aspen.”
Same shell company.
Same aircraft operator.
Different plane.
A year of family tragedies could have left Grant widowed twice.
First Rachel and Cody.
Then perhaps Savannah and Lila.
But why?
Money alone seemed inadequate.
Yes, millions mattered.
Yet each death increased scrutiny.
Each family required years of lies.
There had to be something larger.
Bell seemed to think so too.
“We are examining whether these were actual intended trips or contingency planning.”
Savannah wiped her face.
“Why would anyone create fake itineraries?”
“To establish evidence of planning.”
“For what?”
“That is what we’re trying to determine.”
Then an investigator entered and handed Bell a folder.
He read it.
His expression changed.
“What?”
I asked.
Bell looked toward the door.
“We interviewed Martin Vale.”
My pulse jumped.
“He talked?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He says Grant is dangerous.”
Savannah laughed bitterly.
“Finally, something simple.”
Bell did not smile.
“He also says Reid is the reason Natalie Pierce died.”
The room went quiet.
“Not Grant?”
“Martin claims Grant knew about insurance fraud but did not know the aircraft was going to fail.”
My mind raced.
“What insurance fraud?”
“According to Martin, Reid’s school sometimes exaggerated damage claims after legitimate mechanical failures.”
“That’s still fraud.”
“Yes.”
“But Natalie’s crash?”
Bell chose his words carefully.
“Martin says Reid wanted Natalie’s aircraft written off after landing because the school was under financial pressure.”
Savannah frowned.
“After landing?”
“They allegedly intended to create or exaggerate damage later.”
“What went wrong?”
“Martin claims the aircraft experienced an actual failure during flight unrelated to what they planned.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Very.”
Bell agreed.
“However, Martin says Natalie had discovered the insurance scheme and threatened Grant.”
I stared.
“Threatened him how?”
“To report all of them.”
“Then Grant had motive.”
“Yes.”
“Reid too.”
“Yes.”
“Martin?”
“Yes.”
“So everybody blamed everybody.”
“Correct.”
Bell closed the folder.
“There is one detail we can verify independently.”
“What?”
“Grant’s urgent-care visit on the morning Natalie died.”
I waited.
“He was there.”
“So his illness was real?”
“Not necessarily.”
Bell placed a receipt on the table.
“Reid drove him.”
A camera had captured Reid’s vehicle.
The timing mattered.
Reid ensured Grant had documented medical evidence creating an alibi.
Whether Grant knew Natalie would die remained unresolved.
Then Bell showed me something recovered from the Denver apartment.
An old newspaper clipping.
Natalie’s crash.
Across the top, in Grant’s handwriting:
FIRST TIME WAS LUCK.
Underneath:
SECOND TIME CANNOT BE.
I stared until the letters blurred.
Savannah whispered:
“What does that mean?”
No investigator answered.
Neither did I.
Because whether Grant had murdered Natalie or merely benefited from her accidental death, one thing seemed unmistakable.
May you like
He had learned something from losing his first wife.
And years later, he had begun preparing to repeat it deliberately.
